USA Truck

http://www.thetruckersreport.com/truckingindustryforum/usa-truck/

 

you know ive heard good an bad things bout them had to say which i believe more just do more research on it, iveheard mostly they keep drivers out to long b4 they let them go home thats the one i hear most anywhere from 5 to 8 weeks out

 

Fair company, wouldn't give me direct deposit- blamed US Bank- main reason I quit, Who wants to get paid on the Comm Card they fuel with?

Spoiler

had a good truck myself, 04 Freightliner condo

 

What I've learned so far is that choosing between trucking companies is kind of like choosing which branch of the military you'd want to join: they all stink, but some just stink worse than others.

Have you looked at all the other options yet? I'd suggest you do so before diving in head-first. These are questions I wish I would've asked:

• What's the average age of the tractors used in the fleet? (older tractors will probably break down more, and you can't earn money by spending more time in the shop/on the side of the road than you do pulling freight)
• How responsive is the maintenance department concerning repairs (waiting 6 hours for the maintenance department to approve a replacement mudflap really eats into your available drive time, you know)
• How easy are the fleet managers/dispatchers to work with? (your dispatcher can ruin your day/week/month if you can't see eye-to-eye with him; also, some dispatchers out there have been known to be unscrupulous, doing things like leaving a driver hanging or asking him to do something possibly illegal)
• Anything and everything concerning pay policy (how, when, and for what; layover pay, detention pay, etc). I'm sure you're not doing this for free
• What's allowed in the truck, and what isn't (it would be a shame to buy that brand new 1500 watt inverter just to find out that it's against company policy)
• Home time policy (for many companies it runs something like 1 day home for every 7 on the road. For USA it's a minimum of 2 weeks out, but you probably won't make much money like that with these guys)
• Reimbursement for certain truck-related, out-of-pocket expenses (might be nice to know if the company's going to pay you back that $30 you spent washing their truck)

I'm not saying that I've had problems in these areas; what I am saying is that these are issues which will affect you while you're on the road, and you need to know about them before signing up with any company.

That being said, USA hasn't been that bad to work for (yet). Oh, I'm not saying that I haven't experienced some "issues" - I have (for example, I'm not a big fan of driving the Northeast - but, with USA, you'll get plenty of that, and then some...). But we're talking about the same issues which happen at just about any other company.

BTW, as you do your research, you probably won't find a single company which doesn't have at least a couple of people complaining about it. That's to be expected: this life isn't for everyone, and very few (if any) companies are everyone's cup of tea. You just have to be able to read between the lines and separate the rants from the legitimate complaints (and there are plenty of both just in this forum alone).

 

try to make a good living at 0.28/mile